Chapter Twenty-Six: "Well, That Backfired."
THE FINAL BELL FOR students to get to second period rings and I swiftly move towards class, trying to put my confrontation with Landon into the back of my mind.
I just don't understand why them of all people want to 'look out for me' or 'protect me' or whatever their excuse is. I've done just fine and dandy by myself most times and these guys don't even know me. They just know that I'm the new girl living in their house who is foreign and has secrets that she's too stubborn to tell. Landon's been somehow finding out on his own about why I'm so secretive about my safes, and now he knows one of my secrets.
If he knows about my antidepressants, could he be the one that stole them from me? Could he be the one who took a few of my appetite suppressants, too?
I shake my head to clear my thoughts as I walk into class and take my seat. I'm one of the few that showed up early, and Atticus hasn't shown up yet so I situate myself comfortably and wait for the teacher. A bunch of students come pooling in at a moments notice, and I smile when I see my lab partner as one of them.
"Hey, Sweetheart." Atticus grins as he sits down on my left.
"Hey." I reply.
"You look a little shook. Rough morning?" He asks with a frown, and I scoff. He doesn't know the half of it.
"That'd be the understatement of the century." I chuckle, pulling out my chemistry notes. Bit by tiny bit, I'm slowly improving with my chemistry knowledge and Atticus hasn't even been my tutor a week. Shockingly, for someone who doesn't write notesâor even bring a notebook of some sort for that matterâthe boy works wonders.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
"Don't worry about it," I say, giving him a small and reassuring smile.
"You sure?" He asks slowly, as if I may have heard him wrong at how rushed I answered.
"Yes." I clarify. "So, before we end up getting kicked out of class again and Ms. Ox shows up, are you busy tonight?"
Atticus looks slightly taken aback, but he masks his features and shakes his head a little cautiously. "Tonight?"
"Yes."
"I know I'm irresistible Sweetheart, but we don't have a session tonight."
I roll my eyes at his cockiness and smack his shoulder. "I know that," I chuckle. "I mean like hanging out."
"Hanging out?" He questions.
"Yes, O'Connor. The thing teenagers do with friends? Movies, the mall, housesâ"
"I know what hangouts are, May." He assures me. "I was just screwing with you."
"You're a jerk." I say quietly, shaking my head and quietening down when the teacher walks in.
"Sorry, what was that?" He teases, and I just shake my head again.
"So are you in or not?" I ask, ignoring his playing around for an answer.
"Well that depends," he trails, "are we alone?"
"Sorry homey," I smirk. "Not this time."
He pouts. "Who with?"
"Carly, Jackson, Nathan, Bella and Becca." I tell him. Surprisingly, I remembered their names well, but faces are kind of more a challenge. Faces are harder for me than names are considering a lot of the people back home in Mexico that I was around looked fairly alikeâkinda like Asians.
"Sure, why not." He smirks.
"Great! We're going to the movies." I grin.
Preferably, I wanted Atticus to come along. I could easily tell firsthand that she and the other four were really closely knitted, and I didn't want to be the odd one out. If Atticus came along, there'd be that other person to talk to and since he and I got along pretty well, it'd save me fifth wheeling.
Okay, so maybe I worded that wrong. He isn't going to be used by me so I'm not a loner. I genuinely like him as a person, minus his cockiness and smugness, and I'd be totally okay to get to know him better.
After all, we're partners for the rest of the year so I might as well get aboard the friendship train before it departs.
"The movies? That's a little boring." Atticus inputs.
I turn to him and wink, "Your cousin is going to make it the total opposite."
***
Ten o'clock.
Dressed in black like your typical criminal, the seven of us are all at Carly's house getting ready for our little prank.
Her house is a cute house just five minutes away from school. It's got a blue theme to it, but it isn't overused like I was expecting. It's basic; but it suits her personality, which is surprisingly exactly like her parents'.
"So how are we going to do this without getting caught?" Bella asks as we pull out of the driveway.
"Easy." Carly smirks from beside me. I'm in the car with her and Bella and Atticus, while the other car has Becca, Nathan, and Jackson. We're all talking through walkie talkies, which makes us seem even more rebellious, but also because walkie talkies are fun. "One of my friends works at the theatre so he's going to close down the place for tomorrow."
"So the real thing is actually tomorrow?" Jackson questions through the small device.
"Correct." She grins, holding the walkie to her mouth. "So, once the last film is done, he's going to let us in. I didn't tell him what it was because, duh, we want it to be a surprise, but I told him that it wouldn't cause any company damage, just to people's eyes."
"We go in, do the swap, and then the porno's are in play for when exactly?" Atticus asks.
Thank God we all went through this together. Well, we all as in Carly and I. Apparently the others aren't really good with coming up with Plan B's in the heat of the moment type thing.
"Tomorrow night." I tell him as we pull into the theatre a few minutes later. "The place is just closed for a few hours for 'maintenance' and check-ups on the projectors and screens. So, once it opens again, all movies are in play again."
"Sounds like a plan." Atticus grins evilly as he hops out, everyone else followed suit.
"Not so boring now, huh O'Connor?" I say with a smirk.
"I must say, Sweetheart, you're quite the hostess."
"Okay you two, cut the cutesy shit out and get ready. We have exactly forty minutes to be in and out before the night shift guy comes."
"I can do it in twenty." Atticus and I say at the exact same time. We both snap our heads to each other, small smiles turning into large ones the longer we stare at one another.
"Okay, that was some sketchy stuff." Jackson says as he and the others come up beside us outside the entrance. It's empty, aside from a Honda Civic that we passed when we drove in.
"Yeah, no doubt dude." Nathan says, gaping at the two of us. "It's like they rehearsed."
"Huh." Atticus grunts. "That sounds like a challenge."
"Are we seriously going go do this?" I laugh, turning my body towards Atticus. He spins around and smirks at me.
"Well that depends, May, are you willing to face the consequences of losing?" He challenges, and I tilt my head up to give him my best determined stare.
"Are you willing to face the embarrassment of having your ass kicked by a girl?" I shoot back, and his smirk just widens, and he winks at me flirtatiously.
"Accepted." He grins. "Pick your losing team, baby girl."
A small blush rises to my cheeks when he says that, and I hide my face behind my hair. For some reason, butterflies rose to my stomach and I couldn't help but swoon when he called me that. It sounds foreign, but right at the same time.
"I choose Nathan." I say aloud, rubbing my hands together. It's an evil gesture, but I'm actually doing it to keep warm. It's colder up here in the north, so I made a poor decision to wear black shorts and a thin leather jacket.
"Fine. Carly, you're with me." He speaks up, and I see Carly visibly grimace.
"Really? Why me?" She groans, pouting her way to stand behind her cousin.
"Because you're my baby cousin, and we make a good team." Atticus replies smugly, and Carly rolls her eyes before crossing her arms.
"Bella." I voice, cutting the two's little disagreement off.
"Well, guess that leaves me with Jackson." Atticus grumbles.
"Hey!" Jackson protests as he walks to Atticus, "I am, as a matter of fact, a great criminal, okay? You know that, they know that, why discriminate?"
"Relax, man, I'm just screwing with you." Atticus chuckles, bumping his shoulder with Jackson. Jackson just rolls his eyes and stands beside Atticus.
"We're a man short," Bella speaks, counting around the group. She's right; my team is short one. We need another guy to make numbers even, because the next choosing is going to be Atticus picking a girl and me a guy.
"It's fine," I say casually. "I can do one less."
"You sure, Sweetheart?" Atticus asks.
"Of course," I smirk. "Go ahead, take Becca and we'll show you that it's just a number."
"Alright." He nods, no further questions pressed. He walks closer up to me, and I need to crane my neck up to see his eyes. He's a head taller than me, but it really does make a difference up close. He holds his hand out for me to take, and I accept, connecting our hands and giving it a firm shake. "May the best man win."
"May the best man win." I repeat, and we hold the position for a few moments, just staring at each other. His eyes shine in the darkness even though there's no light visible, and I see that they've darkened more than usual. His hard to read his expression, since he's keeping it blank, but whatever the feeling is, it's making me nervousâand somehow not in a bad way.
We finally back away, and almost instantaneously, we're running inside and off.
Okay, so there's five theatres, so that means I need to beat Atticus to three of them, and in twenty minutes like promised. All I need is to find the control rooms for them all, and place the disks we were given inside them. When we all went inside the adult shop, it'd be an understatement if we said we got a little weird looks from other shoppers. There were five of us shopping there since Bella and Becca had hockey practice, so seeing five teenagers coming in to buy porn kinda brought off the weird vibe. Looks got even more weirder once we asked the front desk which DVD's were the most appealing and hardcore.
For something that was supposed to only be a five to ten minutes, it actually turned into thirty minutes because the boysâmainly Atticus and Nathanâwere too occupied with playing with dildos and comparing fake penis sizes.
Jackson and I found it quite entertaining, however I couldn't say the same for Carly. She seemed really embarrassed.
"Do any of you know how to run the projectors?" I ask as we jog to the first theatre, and up to the deck where everything is controlled.
"Of course not," Bella says.
I roll my eyes and turn back to catch Nathan's eye. "What about you?"
"I do." He says, and I grin widely.
"Magnificent. You can do the first theatre, Bella and I will do the third, and we'll meet up at number five once we're all done." I say, and he nods before running into the first showroom.
Bella and I make it to theatre number three, and I'm taking stairs two at a time to get to the control room. Bella is a couple feet behind me, sadly with the disc. "Hurry, hurry, hurry!"
"I'm going as fast as I can!" She exclaims. "These steps can't exactly work two by two with me with my size." Okay, so maybe she's too short to take two since the stairs are wider, but she's only an inch or two shorter than me so it can't be that hard if I can do it without effort.
Or maybe it's because I have experience but that's not the point. . .
I quickly get the CD from Bella, open it up and place it into the player. I press play, and the projector starts rolling, and the introduction begins playing. About thirty seconds into the show, the action starts beginning, and Bella immediately covers her eyes.
"Ew!" She gags, turning around and pressing her hands over her ears.
I chuckle, looking at her and shaking my head. "What, never watched porn before?" I ask with raised eyebrows, my voice completely filled with mirth. For a teenager, if she hasn't watched anything sexual, then I truly wonder if she's human at all or born on another planet that forbids any activity of the sort.
"I watched that romantic cutesy stuff, not hardcore shit! God, that's so disturbing."
I laugh at her, and turn my attention back to the computer and rewind the movie, and stopping at the menu. I shut the monitor off, stuffing the disc case in Bella's backpack before running to the fifth playroom.
"Come on, we're almost there!" I shout behind me, running across the huge place. I thought it'd be a one storey floor plan, but I was wrong. This place has three stories, and it makes sense on why we have twenty minutes because we have twenty minutes to get all !nine theatre rooms labelled one, three, and five. And there's three in total, so the final fifth room on the third floor is what cuts the tie.
And I am determined to kick Atticus' ass.
Once we finally reach the third floor, Bella and Nathan and I are on our way to number three.
"Go, go, go!" I shout at Nathan. "You're faster than me!"
Without hesitation, Nathan snatches the case out of my hand and runs up to the control room, placing the disk in, quickly running the film, rewinding it, then running back down. As soon as I seen him rewinding, I sprinted for the door to head to the final room.
I hear several footsteps behind me and quickly turn my head to see Atticus and his group coming at us. I gasp, and try to run faster, and I mentally fist bump myself once I reach the doors for the final room.
I'm running up the stairs to the top, when I feel Atticus encircle his arms around my waist to hold me back. I know it's him because he was way ahead of everyone else. I gasp, and grab his ankles once he pulls me back. He grunts as he falls up the stairs, and I laugh evilly at him and sprint past.
Opening the door to the controls, I squeal when his arms yet again find themselves around my stomach and we both fight each other for the player.
"No!" I squeak as he starts poking at my sides. "No, stop, Atticus that so isn't fair!"
"There was no rules against physical prevention, Sweetheart." He chuckles, and I pinch his shoulder, which causes him to briefly loosen his grip, allowing me to wiggle out of his arms enough to reach the 'open' button and have the track come out.
I snatch the DVD case that fell on the floor from our fighting and place it in the holder. Before I can press the close button, Atticus pulls me away and again and I struggle against him before I use both hands to hold onto the ledge of the desk to help so he doesn't pull me away. After a good minute, I final press the close button with my middle finger.
"Yes!" I scream out in victory, and throw both hands up in the air.
Well, that backfired. That was a mistake.
I lose my balance, and Atticus' weight doesn't help at all, so we stumble down just as the movie starts playing. Atticus falls smack on top of me, nearly winding me in the process.
However, he's quick enough to not drop his whole weight on me and catches himself on his elbows. My heart is pounding erratically in my chest, and not just from the long run I just did.
We're so close, our noses are almost touching and I can smell his breath. He smells like peppermint; a scent that is very often surrounding him. He looks down at me, his eyes twinkling and his world-known smirk on his perfectly plump lips.
His perfectly plump, kissable lips.
"Congratulations." He whispers gruffly, his eyes studying mine.
"I knew I'd win," I whisper back. "But I also knew that you kinda let me off."
He chuckles, his laugh deep and slightly hoarse. His eyes don't leave mine, until they suddenly flicker down to my lips and my heart that I couldn't think could be beat faster, starts beating faster and louder, I'm worried he can actually hear it. With his chest touching mine, could he feel how hard it's pounding against my ribs?
"Guess that's something you'll have to find out."
And then he's smiling; actually smiling, and leaning in slowly.
But then the loud moaning noises of the film interrupt us and my eyes widen, and a laugh escapes. Soon enough we're both out of the trance, and Atticus starts laughing with me. In a swift move, he's on his feet, and holding his hand out to me after he stops and reminds he film. I gladly take it, the warmth his hands give embracing me. Suddenly the cool breeze I felt before is now gone, and his scent and warmth is all that is surrounding me.
When I'm bounced back onto my feet, I hear Atticus clear his throat and that's when the rest of the group catches up with us. It felt like forever, but it couldn't be anymore than a couple minutes.
We exit the booth, and walk down together to where everyone stands.
"Well?!" Carly exclaims, but suddenly stops and looks at my sides. Why is she looking at my sides?
I follow her and the everyone else's gaze, and see that somehow, Atticus and mine's hands are still entwined. I drop his hand like it's fire, and grin at the group.
"We did it, guys!" I say happily, and Bella starts squealing, rushing up to me, dragging Nathan along with her and hugging me deathly.
"I knew we could!" She screams in my ear.
"Really?!" Carly exclaims. "You let her?"
"No," Atticus shrugs. "She can just simply outwit me."
"Yeah right." She scoffs. "And Donald Trump is the best president in the U.S."
"Whatever," he laughs. "Let's go. We did our deed and now it's time to let the real fun begin."
"What time is the theatre opening again?" Jackson asks as we make our way down the staircase. Carly stops along the way to thank her source for helping us out, so I answer for him.
"Four, but the porn plays at nine."
"So nine?" He repeats, and I nod. "Okay, cool."
"We have tutoring tomorrow," I finally realize, and pout. I really wanted to see the prank pull off. There's even cameras in all showrooms so we can watch everyone's reactions.
"We do," Atticus agrees.
"What do we do about it?"
"We skip?" He proposes, and I nod, bouncing the idea around. Sure my chemistry marks aren't the worst anymore, but they're still far from good. Although. . . one missed session never hurt nobody, right?
"But I really need the grades." I whine. As much as I definitely would rather do this, I need to think about my future, here.
"Then we'll study on Saturday."
"I have my other tutor on Saturday." I sigh, running my hands over my face. Not a single day I'm available, which sucks majorly. But I'm sure I can push Liam's tutoring around, right? I mean, we live together; we could study at midnight. Atticus, on the other hand, I can't study with at midnight because of distance. Of course, we probably could too, but that'd be tricky.
"Then we'll do it tomorrow night after the prank," he tells me. "You'll just have to stay around longer, then I'll drive you home."
"I thought your license is suspended?" I question.
"Who told you that?" He asks with raised eyebrows. I shrug; I'm not going to rat Carly out, she hasn't done anything wrong. . . yet.
"Nobody, really. . ." I trail off. "Your mom said you couldn't drive me home the other day so I just assumed that you didn't drive yet, or you did something to have it suspended."
"Carly told you, didn't she?" He smirks, and I shrink back, shrugging again. "Come on, Sweetheart, I know her. She can't keep secrets."
Well, damn. "Oh." Is all I can manage to say.
We're all silent as we head back to our cars, and Carly arrives a few moments after we do. "The girls are sleeping over at mine and Jackson's going back to Nathan's so Atty you can drive Brookie home!" Carly says giddily, and I raise my eyebrows at how happy she seems about that, and all the pieces start fitting together once I see her smirk then wink at me before getting in, revving the engine, then driving off.
That was weird, I think to myself, and sigh.
"It was. That's Carly for you." I notice that the voice in my head didn't belong to me and I turn to the source.
"Did I say that out loud?" I ask, and Atticus nods. "Well, shit."
"I take it that that was supposed to be in your head as well?" He laughs.
I shake my head, "No. That was definitely meant for your ears."
Atticus laughs again and gestures for me to get in the car, and I do so. He jumps into the front seat, and I follow suit, putting my seatbelt on. He pulls out before I even finish buckling up.
"Can I guess why you lost your license?" I ask as he begins driving down the road. He goes a different route than our bus, so I don't know where we're going.
"Where is this coming from?" He asks. "My license suspension isn't important to anyone, Sweetheart."
"You didn't deny it," I point out.
"Why do you care so much?" He retorts. "How is it significant?"
"I'm in a car with you." I say blankly.
"A lot of people have been in a car with me," he laughs.
"Yeah, but you also aren't wearing a seatbelt and you're going like seventy miles per hour on a city street."
"We go by clicks in the north, Sweetheart." He replies, ignoring my statement.
"Clicks?" I say aloud, adding under my breath, "What the hell are clicks?"
"Kilometres," he answers. "You guys have miles, we have kilometres. You'll get used to it, Sweetheart."
"Okay, whatever." I say. "So, can I guess?"
Atticus hesitated. "Sure." He finally replies.
"A cute, cocky teenage boy that's a rebel," I hum, thinking over my options on how the guy beside me managed to lose his driver's license. "I'm going to say reckless."
"Incorrect." He tells me, switching lanes and putting his blinker on.
Incorrect? Really? I figured he would have lost it because he was speeding down after pulling a prank similar to the one we just pulled.
"Drunk driving?"
"Nope."
"Drug paraphernalia?"
"Drug paraphernalia? What? No way!"
I'm starting to run out of options given by what I know about him.
"Were you high?"
"I'd never drive while my vision or brain would be impaired."
The only other major thing that I can think of is kidnapping, or speeding way over the limit. Though I have a feeling in my gut that Atticus isn't a kidnapper, but what do I know? He doesn't know anything about me and my past, and I desperately want to bet that my then-life is a lot more worse and scarring.
But I can't.
This boy could have been through way worse than I have; I'm an idiot for even thinking that just because I was involved in probably the most dangerous crowd to be around, doesn't mean he couldn't have, either. Atticus could be exactly like me for all I know; I can't be selfish and make assumptions. I've done that too many times in the past, and it's gotten me in a lot more trouble than I thought.
"Speeding." I finally say, concluding to myself, trusting my gut. I may be wrong, I may not, but they probably play their cards differently around here.
He doesn't answer.
However, I somehow think I am correct. After all, his body tensed up when I said that, and his knuckles tightened against the steering wheel. His jaw locked, and from my peripheral vision, his eyes went coldâmaybe sad, too.
"You're right. It isn't my business. I apologize." I speak softly. After all, it isn't. He doesn't know me; he doesn't need to open up to someone who he has only known a few days. It could be a hard subject for him, or he could just not want to tell me about his legal issues.
I respect that.
"Don't worry about it." He says after.
We remain in a silence until he pulls up to the house. I don't make a move to get out, and he doesn't make a move to kick me out. It's kind of an awkward silence, but I know it's my fault. I brought up a topic I should have never mentioned.
I open the door.
"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm sorry."
"I'll see you tomorrow, Sweetheart." He mumbles, and drives off.
I sigh, walking up to the doors and opening them up. There's a few shadows that I can see, so I enter the living room to see one of the twins, Ella, and Thomas.
"Brooklyn!" Ella says, and gives me a wave. I smile back at her, returning the gesture. I don't know why or how, but for some reason, now that she knows where I came from makes my nerves settle down more. Though I don't know if she knows why I was in prison, for either times, if she knows if I was in the Pen the first time. I have no idea what my parents discussed with her, but it makes me more mad that they could just release that kind of information to someone I don't even know.
It also makes me more angry at my dad, since he basically backstabbed me and didn't seem to care.
Not to mention the fact that I suspect Ella talks to my parents on the daily, or pretty close to it, when I haven't spoken to them since I was arrested before coming to Canada.
"How was your night?" She asks, cleaning up some dishes. It's very late, and I was surprised to see her doing dishes at eleven o'clock at night when she could be sleeping. The same could go for one of the twins and Thomasâthough he looks to be doing some late paperwork.
"It was good." I reply. "I'm really tired so I'm going to go to bed. Goodnight, everyone."
"Goodnight, hun." Ella says with a small smile. I receive a grunt from Thomas, and nothing from the twin. I walk past and up the several flights of stairs that require me to take to get to my bedroom.
I undress, taking some sleeping pills and jitter a little bit at how I still haven't gotten my prescription. And how I need to take therapy again. Oh no, not right now we aren't discussing this, Brooklyn. Go to sleep.
Crawling onto the hard and uncomfortable bed and under the covers, I fall into a restless sleep that is filled with the nightmares that have occurred every night since my release.